My D is having a hard time. In the 1st semester, she had struggled academically due to her illness and her room mate problem as well as course load, which we found out during Christmas break. She said she was going to try this semester, but now she is saying she wants to quit; transfer is not her option due to the bad marks in the first semester. I want to support her decision but at the same time, I still want encourage her to continue at the current school which was her dream school last year.
Should I go there and listen to her? - I am thinking to go there next week since I could have some time to break from my work. I don’t want her to suffer mentally so I know I should support her decision, but if she comes back, there is no guarantee that she could be happy. I guess her unhappiness comes from being far away from her HS friends who all went to colleges closer to home than her. She is the only one who went to the school far away from home. Too much FB.
@NothingKnow Sorry to hear about your D’s troubles. Transfer might not be an option but perhaps she could take a leave to regroup and take classes at a local community college. That might help her to get her confidence back and demonstrate that she’s finding her way; she might have the option to go back if she changes her mind. If she’s convinced the school really isn’t a fit it probably is not productive to suggest otherwise. But I think you are right that listening to her is the best course to find out what’s really going on.
I came home after my first semester wanting to transfer to a cheaper school where I felt I could study what I wanted. My mother convinced me to keep going and eventually I changed majors out of engineering (without telling her in advance, and after my grades started to go down). I loved my college, which was far away, and formed lifelong friendships – most from my sophomore year. So sometimes it is worth sticking it out. But I know a lot of people who transferred and that was the right decision for them.
In sobering news, a college student went missing in Rochester, last seen on Sunday. Car found near Lake Ontario in a place he liked to go walking; he’s a photography major. I’m reading between the lines that they think it might have been an accident, falling into the lake. Hoping for good news, can’t imagine what the family is going through. http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/02/police_using_sonar_equipment_i.html
Crowlady makes a good point, NothingKnow. Community college classes just may give your student the confidence she needs to return to her school.
My son shot me a text with the snow falling outside his fraternity house. He had more than eight inches. But, Huntsville did an awesome job of cleaning up so there will be classes today (although he does not have Friday classes). Glad he is starting to feel better – has been battling a cold for more than a week. He is not coming home for Spring Break, so I’ll go see him when I have my break from school. It should be a fun time.
@glido - enjoy the time with your son! I can’t believe it’s already spring break time for some. DD’s is really late - not till the last week of March but most of her friends will be home the third week. Don’t you live somewhere with much better weather than in Boston?
D arrives home tomorrow around noon. She has an early break but at least her mid-terms are over. She has a new roommate for next year and they have been accepted into one of the learning communitues. They are now waiting for word on which dorm whey will be assigned.
I thought all of the headaches and indecision ended last year. It turns out that is not the case as S-2011 who is graduating this year is 10-1-1 with his law school apps with 3 more pending decisions. It appears we (I should say he as this is his trip and at his cost) will be on the 2015 sailing of the SS Grad/Law/Med School Indecision come the end of March. I have already spent the past two weeks completing taxes, FAFSA and Need Access forms (similar to CSS but for graduate and professional schools). WIll it ever end??? :-*
AvonHSDad: Did the Need Access stuff a year ago with our older son. Well, he completed most of it – just wanted us to look over it. My husband offered to do his taxes this year. He should be receiving, he thinks, some sort of a refund. The boy has learned over the past few years to become more conservative with his money. Probably because he does not have much! Someday, the forms, they will end.
Son is doing well at college. All As except for Calc III. Similar story shaping up this marking period. I’m glad he’s being challenged a bit or he’d be thinking he should’ve aimed higher even though this school is perfect for him and the other top choice was a budget bender (if not breaker). He’s now rowing varsity so he’s training and competing with his team in Miami over spring break. The coach is a benevolent dictator so I’m not worried about shenanigans.
He’s going to room with an upperclassman rower next year (all the better with their 4:30 am wakeups. Not crazy about the dorm choices (Nice but a mile from main campus, or close but dingy). He’s already getting interest from places to do internships.
Now it’s time for DD to pick 9th grade classes so I guess I’ll start lurking on the '19 board now too.
@momreads - I found the Need Access much simpler than the CSS (College Board) forms. And they don’t nickel and dime you everytime you add another school. I did S’s taxes so we could get these reports in on time. S got his refund in about 10 days and was very happy as it was over $400.
@Quagmiro - good luck with the up and coming 9th grader. Look at what you get to experience again with DD-19!
DS applied for, and was waitlisted to be an RA next year, but thankfully has a guaranteed spot in the (fairly nice) sophomore honors dorm. He has also found this semester definitely more challenging with 19 (versus last semesters 16) credit hours including 4 STEM classes and 2 labs (ouch!), however feels he is holding his own with the grades. Also this week he got his first rejection from his summer internship applications. Hopefully, his spring break which is still a few weeks away will prove rejuvenating.
I think D registers for classes late March and seems pretty content with her majors. She brought in enough DE/AP credits that I think she ought to consider a minor. She’s got the time in her schedule. She signs up for housing right before Easter. Roommates are all lined up. Apps for summer research job are in, but I don’t know when she’ll hear. It’d pay more than her job at the pool, but she’d have some living expenses.
I hear you @AvonHSDad about the new round of indecision, My d’11 is looking for a job. She’d prefer a residency program and is applying all over the country. Good grief if there are choices to be made.
DS has signed a lease for an apartment with his current roommates - 4BR/4BA. Very nice student housing. The price seems high, but not as high as some other complexes so I’m ok with that.
His classes this semester are still going well. He should be choosing classes for next semester soon.
He is still undecided about spring break, but it’s looking like it will be Florida panhandle with a million other wild college students. I’ve warned him to be careful and don’t do anything to get arrested!
He’s still waiting to hear about a summer job he applied for. He’s applying to work at one of the Boy Scout high adventure camps that he had previously gone to as a scout. I keep telling myself that there is no reason they should NOT hire him (two treks, Eagle scout, earned the Honor Medal there, etc.), but still anxious until we hear from them. This will be the last summer for a “fun” job before starting co-ops or internships beginning next year.
They missed a couple of classes here and there for weather which they could have made it to without a problem, but better safe than sorry - it could have gotten bad. So hard to predict what the exact temperature will be - just 100 miles north they got 10 inches of snow!
@BeadyMom, I am pleased to see that your DS is applying to work at the Boy Scout camp.
My Eagle Scout son has signed up as an adult leader for his old troop and is thinking about volunteering for the Boy Scout this summer. He loved his BS experience so wanted to continue to contribute even though he is no longer a ‘boy’ scout. There is a small hesitation since he is not sure if med school admission will see this as ‘why are you still involved with the activities you did in high school’. If that is the case, then he will not mention the activity when applying to SOM later. I am hoping that they will see that he is now contributing as an adult leader. Does anyone know any college students involved in boy scout and whether that turn out to be a worthwhile experience in terms of future applications?
@RenaissanceMom, Boston HAS gotten slammed this year, but they generally get less snow (and more sun) than dreary Ithaca. I lived in Ithaca for 24 years and it was enough to spur me to move all the way to Hawaii!! However, in late spring-summer-early fall, it is truly gorgeous and there are lots of great places to go hiking and just be outdoors.
@2018dad, I went to school in Michigan (from Maryland), and while the winter was brutal, and had me questioning my decision, the first spring day was more amazing than I could have imagined. Something about the harshness of the winter made that first sunshine and the blooming trees and flowers so much sweeter. 33 years later and I still remember it! Hopefully your DD will have a similar experience.
DS is loving Denver, having fun with his backstage work, doing well in 3 out of his 4 classes, and looking forward to his planned spring break trip in a couple of weeks. A couple of nerds are going camping, would probably make a funny movie. He’s not doing too well in Calc II, he says the prof is very hard to understand and difficult to deal with, so he and his friends are just trying to learn it on their own from the book. Doesn’t seem to be working very well from the grades he’s getting but he’ll pass. At least next term he gets a break from Calc, I think he’ll like Discrete Math. One surprise is that he says he’s finally “getting the hang” of French, and doing better than his first-term B. And he’s back to loving CS, so that’s good, since it’s his major. He’s also increased his work hous to 17, which scares me, and could be causing some of the problem with math, but he says it’s ok, and I’m trying to be more “hands off”. Not easy, you know?
D decided she wants to come home for the summer after all. No one she knows is staying after all. I really wanted her to get ahead a little, so we’ll see if she takes a class at the not so local CC. I told her I expect her to not be nightmare and check the attitude at the door before she comes home.
She went to a fraternity formal this weekend in new orleans. She’s also going to spring break in Destin. She and 7 girls on her floor pooled together to get a house. She seems to be doing better in her classes this semester. I think it took her a semester to get everything settled. Funny enough the computer class she dropped first semester she now has 100.
She will work for me this summer. I’m viewing it more as an internship as she’ll go out on sales calls with hubby and another director, and work with the administrator and how we analyze the employees and learning about the revenue steam. Hubby and I would like to work to semi-retiring in a few years - it would be ideal if one of the kids knew enough to at least be able to sign off on things or be kept in the loop. We’ll see where her talents and interests lie.
@eyemamom we hope to know by the end of the week whether or not d’14 will be home for the summer. I would love to have her since d’11 will also be home (at least until she takes boards and starts working somewhere) and it’d be one last family summer, but I know for a fact that I am romanticizing. I thought it was bad having a semi-adult college student home for the summer. What’s it going to be like to have a real adult home for the summer–and a grouchy one at that, too, because she’s stressed out over studying and finding a job. We’ll see how it goes.
DD called last night, I think primarily for me to talk her down from getting tattoo #2 on her birthday. I think she was leaning against it anyway but it was very, very nice to talk to her–she rarely calls. Plus, it looks like she will come home for her spring break in 2.5 weeks. Yay! We live in NYC where February temps were 10 degrees colder than usual, but it’s much worse where she is upstate–she said it would be nice to have consistent temps over zero.
